Little Girl Cute and Little Boy Brute

My daughter is adorable.  She is walking well, but she still has that cute little toddle that goes with her stride.  She's trying to walk more quickly, so she falls flat on her face a lot, gets right up, and keeps going.  She smiles a lot, she likes to engage your attention, hand you things and then take them back.  She has some words and accents those words with lots of additional babbles.  She is a little girl cute.

Her brother, on the other hand, while also being cute, is a little boy brute.  He is bigger, he is stronger, he is more experienced and he is mentally aware that he wants to experience everything, and yet can't experience it all.  In short, he's a two-year-old.

It's a reasonable and understandable phase where children get frustrated because they want to do, have, reach or experience more than they can or are allowed to.  One easy way to work this frustration out is to push your sister over.  Or at least that's how it's being played out in our house. 

He also wants attention.  Giving him attention, even negative attention, just because he did something rude to his sister, is in part, a win for him.  Reacting to his sister every time a small or slight insult occurs only gives her the incentive to cry or complain more.  So we have some challenges to rise to.

He's not a bad kid.  Children are born selfish and must be taught to share, to be kind and to be gentle.  I must say though, just like his Aunt Brenda, I am looking forward to the day his sister gets tired of his shenanigans and hauls off and hits  him in the face.  I will try not to laugh.

The Big Boy Update:  Asleep at the meal again.  He didn't get around to napping and after eating the breaded pizza for dinner he couldn't manage to stay awake while the rest of us finished eating.  I reclined the chair so he could nap for a bit.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Asleep in and out of bed.  For her morning nap, she settled down and was quiet after wandering around the room for a while.  My husband went up to check on her to find her asleep between the rocking chair and the dresser.  For her afternoon nap, I put her in the room and went to get the carpet cleaner to get a few spots treated in their room.  I came back just moments later to find her asleep in her toddler bed, with her blanket, without her pacifier.  She slept for several hours.  Also, night three of the toddler bed with the rail opening switched to the opposite orientation and she didn't fall out in the middle of the night.  This toddler bed thing just might work after all...

Fitness Update:  Only 2.5 miles this morning for several reasons, but we got out in twenty-seven degree weather and ran, so I count that as a win.  On the weight maintenance front, today marks forty-five weeks since I started to lose weight and then subsequently maintain weight earlier this year.  At today's weigh-in, I'm still maintaining, and some days, just maintaining feels like an effort when there are delicious holiday meals and desserts and treats all around you.

Someone Once Said:  He had discovered that long human words rarely changed their meanings but short words were slippery, changing without pattern. Or so he seemed to grok. Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife.

The One Who Dies With The Most Toys Wins

When I was in high school it seemed everyone had a shirt with the saying, "The one who dies with the most toys wins," on it.  It was like one of those very clever television commercials that you remember because the jingle would get stuck in your head or it was hilarious, and yet you don't remember what the commercial was about.  That shirt, with that slogan, was for something.  Maybe it was a sporting goods store.  It could have been a national chain or some product line that was local; but regardless, the source of the high school t-shirt craze eludes me.

Today, I think of that phrase commonly when I watch my son.  I think of it more often than not when he's in the tub with his sister.  He is older, he is bigger, and he is accustomed to being able to bully his way through a situation (unless he's caught at it) to get what he wants from his sister.  Most of the time, this means he wants whatever it is she has.

In the tub, we commonly put in a lot of floaty toys.  They float all around the two children and they like to play with them.  My son likes to tell us what each one is now.  But he wants to have them all.  He wants all the ones she picks up, but things float away from you in the tub, so if you grab one and drop the one you were holding, it will most likely get back to her and then she's got something to play with again.  So, and this is the best part, he tries to hold all the toys he can in his arms and to make sure he doesn't lose any, he has to sit still and do nothing.

He has won domination over the majority of the toys, but he can't play with them or he'll lose them.  It's like the saying from the high school t-shirt and what it made me think about.  If you have all the toys, but you're dead, what good is that?  I know, I know, that's not the goal of a retailer trying to sell you their great kayaking equipment, but that's what I thought about nevertheless.

His sister doesn't mind too much as one of us sends the other toys he couldn't fit into his greedy little arms over to her and it goes completely over her head that he's trying to play toy keep-away.

We are working on courtesy, sharing and kindness every day.  It is a work in progress.

The Big Boy Update:  Five word sentences.  More than one reliable adult has caught him saying five word sentences.  He uses four word sentences regularly, sometimes back to back.  It's mostly descriptive, where he tells you what is currently happening or what he observes, but he's chaining more words together all the time now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Rocking.  There are two rocking chairs, one in her bedroom and one in ours.  They were both presents from her Mimi, and the one in our bedroom was the one Mimi rocked me in when I was a baby.  She is currently obsessed with climbing in, standing in, sitting on, rocking, climbing out, throwing the pillow off the edge, putting the pillow back in, and then repeat until she's tired or it's time to eat.

Fitness Update:  Finally we ran.  Only six miles because I'm still somewhat coldy and we haven't run in almost two weeks.  We plan on running again tomorrow.  Hope for good weather, my friends.

Someone Once Said:  People always expect a government to work miracles—even people who are fairly bright other ways.

Stairs and Pretzels and Falling Down

Several things have happened in our lives lately that involve falling down, pretzels and stairs.  First, I'll start with my personal combination of all three, Stairs + Pretzels + Falling down.

Last night I had a platter full of pretzels my brother and sister-in-law had brought for us to enjoy.  It was movie night and I said I'd take the plate down to share with everyone.  As I started down the stairs my foot must have slipped or stumbled or stuttered on the carpet and from that point on things got busy and hazy all at the same time.

I think (I am not sure) that I wasn't able to stabilize myself and/or grab the hand rail.  I further think I was doing the wrong thing mentally and thinking, "Don't drop the pretzels!"  Shortly after that, as I fell forwards, I realized I was going down the full flight and started doing damage control.  "Save your spine!" I remember thinking.  I have had multiple spinal fusions and I have a healthy fear of more spinal damage and injury.

I don't know how or what I did, but I think I tried to make a large, expanded ball of myself using my arms to push away from my head and back.  I do know I tumbled over and over and ended up on my back at the bottom of the steps.  It was a loud, but I think a somewhat slower fall than it might have otherwise been.

And as I looked up from my awkward position at the bottom of the stairs, I saw all my friends standing around with the most worried faces on.  They had all dashed from their chairs to make sure I was okay.  They wouldn't let me get up.  I wasn't in a hurry, but I needed to check out my limbs and body.   I got up and they had me sit down.  I started feeling around and we were all talking about how terrible it sounded, me falling down the stairs with the clatter of the pretzels and the metal plate falling with me.

One of my friends was very upset.  He was visibly shaken.  I got up and hugged him and told him he was going to make me cry he was so worried.  I kept saying that I remember thinking I had to protect my neck and spine and I don't know how I did it, but aside from two small scrapes on my leg through my pants and a bruised knuckle, I thought I was okay.

They told me I should be excused from doing anything else for the rest of the night and that I was going to be sore tomorrow.  I didn't argue.  I went to bed, expecting to be all aches and pains today, but no, I'm fine.  I have a mildly bruised knuckle and two small scrapes.

Also, I have to say thanks to everyone who didn't mind the pretzels on the floor and ate them anyway.

The Big Boy Update:  My son only has Pretzel action happening, but it's annoying enough to bother both my husband and me.  He loves pretzel sticks.  He eats them all the time.  We found a small pretzel stick lodged in the grounding hole of an outlet the other day just after he put it there.  We removed it when he wasn't looking.  And before I get phone calls from outraged adults, I challenge anyone to have a completely baby-proof house.  I doubly challenge you to have a toddler-proof house.  When you build your padded walls, furniture-less home, invite me over, I want to see this marvel.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter gets points for both Stairs and Falling Down, but not together.  On the stairs front, she very much wants to walk down stairs.  She goes up and down them all day with an adult following closely behind or in front of her.  Now she wants to walk down the stairs, forwards, with your help.  She really wants to do this.  So far, no falling down, but I'm worried we're going to miss her dashing up one time and hear her clattering down.

On the Falling Down side of things, I heard a "clunkety clunk" sound in the middle of the night and realized she'd just tumbled out of her new toddler bed arrangement.  There's a railing, but if you position your little thirteen-month-old body just right in a ball, you can roll off the opening in the rail.  It's only about ten inches to the ground and I was upstairs grabbing her about the time she'd started to wake up and become incensed.  I placed her back in the bed and she went right back to sleep.  The rest of the night was another story as she woke up two more times and got out of bed to investigate.

Fitness Update:  Rained out!  Trying again tomorrow morning for a run because running in the dark in the rain in thirty-degree weather just isn't that fun.

Someone Once Said:  I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent...a person, yes.

The Nap Dance

This could have been a bad idea, but I'm not sure it was any worse than it would have been otherwise; I converted our daughter's bed to a toddler bed today.  Here's the thing, she's thirteen-months-old, and that would be, in my general opinion, far too early to give her the freedom of a toddler bed.  But there are other factors, okay, one other factor, her brother.

He could climb out of his bed some time ago, but he didn't climb out.  I'm not sure why, but even though he had the capability, he didn't take advantage of it.  Until just recently.  Once we realized there was no keeping him in his bed, it didn't make sense to not change over his crib to a toddler bed.  "There's really no sense in punishing him by asking him to land on his head and then not be able to get back into his crib if we had an alternative," I thought.

The problem arises in that he and his sister share the same room.  In general, they sleep very well together, even if one is wailing or crying or not sleeping, if the other is tired, then that sibling just goes off to sleep.  We have a new plan to put a gate at the door to their room and shut the door to their play room until my son is asleep.  Later in the night when we check on them, we open the door to the playroom so he can occupy himself when he wakes up.  And this has worked.

So far, he gets up and plays nicely until it's time to eat.  But he doesn't leave his sister alone.  He wants her to play with him so he shoves things into her crib through the slats.  We had to remove a chair because he was using it to climb into her crib; and on top of that, she's mad because she wants to be out and playing too.

So today, as a test, I converted her crib to the same toddler bed as his.  She has loved his toddler bed.  She's all about climbing and she has had more fun climbing in and out of his toddler bed since we converted it.  Now she can climb in and out of her bed.   But will this change work out?

So far, it's been interesting.  She is so very excited to be able to climb in and out of the bed that it's been hard to go to sleep.  Eventually for her morning nap she did fall asleep.   This afternoon they were both tired.  While her brother finished his bath I took her up to bed and expected her to fall straight to sleep.  No such luck.  She was bed shopping.  For ten minutes she went from one bed to the other, checking out the mattress, lying down, getting back up, going back to the other bed, and most notably, not sleeping. 

When her brother came up to have a nap he was delighted and wanted to help her in her bed selection pursuits.  He brought blankets and pillows from bed to bed.  He tried to get into the bed with her, he tried to jump on her head (he does that from time to time) and he definitely, without a doubt, wasn't about to go to sleep either.  It was a funny little nap dance to watch.

Eventually we got them both up.  She hasn't napped yet and it's approaching bed time.  He, on the other hand, fell asleep on the sofa sitting up and hasn't woken up yet for dinner.   I have confidence they'll sleep--perhaps together, perhaps separately.  They seem to like each other (when he's not jumping up and down on her head) and I have high hopes they will settle down into a routine soon.

The Big Boy Update:  While all this was going on, the testing of the beds, moving of the blankets and pillows around, I came in to watch for a while.   My son told me to, "lie down."  He brought a blanket over to me as I was lying on the floor.  He brought me a pillow.  I tried to sit up, "No.  Momma, lie down."  I lie back down.  I close my eyes, hoping they will settle down soon.  Then I feel something smashed on my mouth.  Oh, he's brought me a pacifier, the final ingredient to a good nap.  How sweet.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Crib converted to a toddler bed and I don't know how she'll fare tonight.  Usually, once she's asleep she stays asleep through the night.  We shall see how it goes.  We have relatives in town so I'm hoping it goes well because I don't want them to leave early due to lack of sleep from two noisy babies playing across cribs in the middle of the night.

Fitness Update:  We've had two failed run attempts resulting from work issues.  Tomorrow morning we're trying to run again.  Maybe the third time will be our lucky try.  My neighbor and I haven't run in so long we're wondering if we've forgotten how. 

Someone Once Said:  Most people won’t learn even by experience. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

Post-Holiday Irrelevancy and Additional Ramblings

Tardy with a Bit of Irrelevancy
I was excited I'd been posting, every day, for a year now.  I remembered getting started right after Christmas last year.  I was pretty sure it was the 27th.  This morning I went to check and I started posting on the 21st, not the 27th.  My first thought was, "Well damn, how could I have missed my blog anniversary?"  My second thought was, "Well, it's no surprise, I'm terrible with anniversaries and birthdays, a week late isn't so bad."  So my post about how I was pleased I'd made it a full year, posting every day, saying this and that and trying to add in a bit of humor where I could manage it, was now totally irrelevant.  But I did make it a year and it does seem many days like this blog is an important part of my life.  I never styled myself as a journal writer, but it appears to suit me in some way.

Just Flip It!
For those who have seen (and seen again, and seen yet again) the movie Mystery Men, hopefully an image of Captain Amazing has popped into your head with this sub-title.  Not only is Mystery Men one of my favorite movies, it has many lines that accent my life and add emphasis just where needed.  And with that as an introduction, let's talk about mattresses.

I had had a mattress forever (no, really, I think it had been that long.)  I had bought a new mattress and the nice salesman had explained how you should rotate and flip your mattress on a regular basis.  "Pish, pshaw, whatever," I thought.  That night I slept the last night ever on my old mattress.  The old mattress I had never flipped because the other side had an unsightly cool-aid stain on it.  A cool-aid stain you never saw under mattress pad and sheet.   "I shall debunk this mattress flipping conspiracy," I thought and flipped the soon-to-be-recycled mattress.  And then...I had the best night's sleep I had had in years.

So now, I'm a mattress flipping convert.  Every four to six months I flip my mattress, even if my husband doesn't want to.  I even flipped my mattress pregnant and then got put on bed rest the next day due to a cervix that was a bit strained.  Was it the heavy lifting of a king-sized mattress my mother and I flipped the day before?  We will never know.  But I slept better for the rest of the pregnancy, I can tell you that.   We flipped our mattress again the other day.  Firmness.  Bliss.  "Comfy dumfy" as I called it.  My husband told me that word was more silly than the word "huggles," which I hate.  Still, if you haven't flipped your mattress in a while, do yourself a favor and do so.

My Rainbow-colored Nose
I have seen more colors come out of my nose in the last two weeks than I would have believed had I told my two-weeks-ago self from the future me of today.  Perhaps not all of the rainbow of colors, but a good percentage.  My friend during all this congestion mess has been a product called Neilmed that my father and several other people have recommended over the past few years.  You mix water with a PH balanced saline solution and you stick the nozzle into your nose and inhale or squeeze, or both.  Either way, you're not getting a misting of solution into your nose, you're drowning in it.  You are completely and utterly flushing your sinuses with this delightful substance that causes things to dislodge you didn't even know were there.  Things that are so foul and repugnant you're glad they're out, because had you known they were in your head, you might have started to gag right then and there there so it's a good thing you're already at the sink.   If you don't have one of these Neilmed things, get one.  Trust me.

Christmas Squirrel
This is sad, so I'll make it short.  I got up early on Christmas morning to go take care of my friend's cats.  Small, furry animals cared for and I'm on the way home when, bam, a squirrel dashes under my car faster than I can react and I hit it.  I hope I killed on contact it and it didn't suffer.  It was a sad note amidst the happiness of my Christmas day.

Rearrangement of Chattels
Yesterday I was moved to move the children.  I moved them out of our bedroom and into their own room clothing-wise.  They have, since they were born, been dressed and changed in our bedroom.  This has put a cramp in our dresser space for both my husband and me, but it's been worth it from a stair-climbing perspective.  As they're not changing clothing more than twice per day and they commonly get changed before or after naps and bed, it makes sense to put their clothing upstairs in their room.  We will see how it goes.

The Big Boy Update:  Talk and babble.  He can talk and be understood.  But sometimes, all he says is gobbledy blub.  I was just on the phone a few minutes ago with my mother and he wanted to talk to her.  He babbled lots of things, none of which I understood.  My mother said, "You're going to have to give me a little help here," to me.  I told her her guess was as good as mine.  I'm not sure why he's so clear in enunciation sometimes and sometimes makes no baby sense to anyone other than himself.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Wave and Hello.  She waves at you if you wave at her...sometimes.  And she can say, "hello."   She likes to wave and say hello to herself in the mirror the best I think though.

Fitness Update:  I yearn to run.  I really do.  I drive by the park on the way to take care of my friend's cats and I see the trail.  Perhaps it's cold and rainy but because I can see the trail through the woods and I want to be out there running.  With a cold, in the cold and the rain?  Apparently so.  My neighbor and Uncle Jonathan are back in town now.  Soon I shall run again.

Someone Once Said:    A wedding ring is not a ring in my nose.

The Cosmos and the Bonus Stars

I'm on the mend from this flold now, at least I hope I am, my husband had a downturn for a day or so but I've got no time for that so hopefully, determinedly, I'm almost better.  I've had very few of these really bad cold/flu things that I can remember in my whole life.  I recollect one that really knocked me out for almost two weeks, conveniently during the holidays,  so much so that I was barely able to teach at my customer site early in January.  This one has not been that bad.

I remember when I was very young there was a popular book titled Cosmos, by a gentleman who at the time wasn't very well-known, named Carl Sagan.  This turned out to be the hot item to get for Christmas if you were an intellectual adult, or perhaps were just into outer space and our pursuits therein.   My dad was wild about this book.

I think he suggested I read it or look at it but I was too young and there were too many words and at that age I didn't sit still long enough to read.  Today, I would be all over the book.  I've been thinking about this book a lot this holiday season.  I think I have a vague recollection of the cover, black with lots of stars, but I'm not sure.  What I do remember is a review of the book that ties in the two big hits of the season that year.

First, there was Cosmos, and second, there was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad flu that everyone was getting.  There was lots of congestion and an associated cough—a productive cough that caught you unexpectedly and regularly off guard and sent little spatterings all over the place.  It was a mess.

I remember what the reviewer of Cosmos said, but here's the interesting thing, I remember the review, but I didn't read the book, nor did I read the paper or watch the news, so I'm thinking my mother must have found the review funny and read it aloud to my father and me.  The reviewer said the thing that had helped him make it through the terrible flu was having Carl Sagan's Cosmos to read.  He further said that what with all the coughing he'd been doing he was fairly sure that starry scape had a lot more man-made stars added to it on his copy of the book.

To this day when there's any bout of cold or flu going around smack in the middle of the holidays, I always think of Carl Sagan and Cosmos.

The Big Boy Update: I do it.  Oh boy, does he want to do everything.  Everything.  He's becoming much more conversational about things.  Although... he also seems to be verbally regressing to his sister's level of babble when he's tired.  But he does know how to talk, and when he wants to do something he will tell you he wants to do it himself.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Pick me up, or else.  She likes to be picked up.  Maybe it's for comfort, maybe she just likes you.  Maybe she wants you to feed her or get her, "oooce."  She wants to be picked up a lot.  She will come over to you, put one arm up in the air and do her best cute/pitiful look and hope for the best.  If you don't get her message, she will sit down on the floor and wail in despair.  It appears we have created another baby feedback loop.  We are working to correct this.

Someone Once Said:  Abstract design is all right—for wallpaper or linoleum. But art is the process of evoking pity and terror. Creative art is intercourse, in which the artist renders emotional his audience.

The Very Helpful Cat Sitter

I'm cat sitting for a friend who is out of town for the holidays.  She has four cats, and one of them has the same name as my son.  I found this out a week before my son was born, but as my husband and I weren't telling anyone the name until he had arrived, I had to keep it to myself. 

As I was getting ready to go check on the cats the other day I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice for the two Greyson's to meet?"  I further thought, "I bet he would love helping saying hello to the cats while I feed them and take care of the litter."  Have you ever had one of those situations where you didn't really think things through?  This was one of those situations.

Her cats are very nice.  Well, the ones you see.  Greyson is at the door and ready for you to lavish any and all attention on him from the moment you arrive.  Blue—who is not blue but white, and is named for a blue moon—is also quite outgoing and friendly.   There are two other cats, Maya and Sarge, and they weren't going to make an appearance, even if a truck delivering fresh tuna arrived in their bedroom.  But that's okay, two friendly cats is enough for one small two-year-old.

I explained in the car how he was going to meet a cat that had the same name as he did.  Did he understand, I wondered?  At two, did he comprehend that more than one person (or cat) can have the same name as you do?  I wasn't sure.  I think I over-explained, this being one of my faults.

We arrived and here comes Greyson down the stairs.  My son was all smiles.  We talked for a few minutes and my son did say once, "Hi Greyson," so I think he may have understood after all.   Then on to the business of taking care of the cat's needs.  This is where things got hinky.

How he spied the litter scoop, nestled in it's caddy, before I even got fully in the bathroom is beyond me, but he had it out and he was ready to scoop.  He was ready to scoop litter into the food, and solid wastes onto the floor.  I was trying to help him understand what was important to scoop and what we didn't need to scoop; how you shake the scoop to leave behind the unused litter and only deposit the chunks of solids into the Litter Genie.   He didn't care, he just wanted to scoop.  I finally told him I had to do it and asked him if he could find Blue or Greyson.

While I was busy scooping, let's say about four-and-half seconds later, I looked up to see him carrying the very full cat dish of dry food across the bathroom.  "Wait, what are you doing?" I say  "That needs to stay on the floor." I found myself saying in an alarmed tone.  I realized he wanted to bring the food to the cats, and while this was a sweet gesture, the cats didn't want their food hand-delivered by an unknown two-year-old.  I convinced him to set the big bowl back down carefully and then went back to scooping.  I looked over just seconds later to see him carrying the other bowl out into the bedroom.  The full-of-round-food-that-will-roll-everywhere-including-under-the-bed-when-dropped, bowl with a smile on his face  More convincing that the food needed to stay where it was and another mess narrowly averted.

I got the litter clean and then started working on the restocking the water dishes and food bowls and I was scooping out some wet food into two bowls when I looked around to see him reaching into the litter box to see what fun this litter would be to play with.  No no no no no.  Sigh.  I sent him in another direction while I hurriedly looked for the shy two cats to make sure they were okay.

Where did my son go?  He's back in the bathroom where everything is exciting and he's decided to put some cat food into one of the litter boxes.  How nice of him.  He circumvented the whole digestive system not to mention the cats and put the food strait into the waste container.   Removal of tiny balls of cat food ensues while I try to keep him out of the toilet that's making interesting noises because the fancy cat litter box is doing a rinse/flush cycle.

Downstairs we go and while I'm putting my jacket on he decided the cat tubes look fun.   And they do...if you're a cat.  He gets into this box/tube thing and then says to me, "stuck."  I had to drag him out one arm at a time and then, for some reason, his head was still stuck inside.  But we made it, and no cat or human was injured in the process.

Did he have fun?   After all that, I sure hope so.  I'm am not bringing him back.

Did I mention it's Christmas day?  Happy Christmas to everyone.  We had a fun one so far here.  I hear people cooking in the kitchen upstairs.  I love holidays, family and food.

The Big Boy Update:  He and his sister got a child-sized kitchen set with a stove, refrigerator, oven, sink and even a working ice maker.  It was hard to get him to focus on other presents he was so excited about the kitchen and the prospect of, "cooking" when he came downstairs to the tree and presents this morning. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Opening of the presents.  She understands they're to be opened (I think) but she doesn't seem to be in a hurry to open them.  We put her on a different person's lap for each present and had them open her presents for her this morning.  She liked the company and the gifts together.

Someone Once Said:   Real wealth, on the scale that calls for a battery of finaglers to hold down taxes, would ground you as certainly as resigning would. Big money isn’t hard to come by. All it costs is a lifetime of devotion. But no ballerina ever works harder. Captain, that’s not your style; you don’t want to make money, you simply want to spend money.

The Holidays Without a Welcome

You don't think about how often or under what conditions you hug someone until you make it a point not to do so.  With this flold (flu+cold) thing I have going I don't feel it would be prudent to welcome family and guests into the house with a big, infectious hug for the holidays.  Of course inviting them into the den of germs that I'm sure our house is is probably also ill-advised, but Christmas is coming and family is arriving and we're going to do our best to keep the germs at bay.

A hug is a natural and expected interaction in times that are special or when you see someone whom you haven't seen in a long time.  It's such an ingrained behavior that I've felt like I'm missing something when I've had to skip that step.  The family member or friend arrives, you hug to greet and welcome and then you move on to the standard daily interactions you normally have, because that sincere, welcoming component is complete.

My parents and my in-laws have now arrived and I've waved from afar and we all understand that's best.  But it feels like we've missed a step.  I feel like I've been rude or inconsiderate.  I can't explain it.  My cousins are coming for Christmas day dinner tomorrow.  I've called to warn them of the bio-hazard situation in effect here and I hear they're still coming.  I hope they leave virally-unscathed. 

I've had only one real wish on my list for Santa this year, and that's been for him to not bring this fun flold to the remainder of my family.

The Big Boy Update:  Ear Cracks.  He has heard us say, "ear cracks" so many times in relation to the little area where the ear lobe connects to the side of the head that he now asks for medicine to be put there by repeating, "ear cracks, ear cracks!"  His "ear cracks" are so named because with his dry skin, that particular spot cracks.  If we don't notice it for a day or two, it can get bad enough that it bleeds.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Sippy cup in the holder.  Her brother was adamant about putting the sippy cup in the cup holder on his tray from the very start.  She's decided this is also a good thing and has a great time drinking some and then placing the cup back in it's spot.

Someone Once Said:   The cowards never started and the weaklings died along the way.

The Flu and A Cold

Why do we get, "a cold" but we have, "the flu?"  There isn't a single strain of either, they're both undergoing constant mutations as the wave of infectious people sweeps around the planet; and yet, that's the nomenclature we use to describe one condition over the other.

What denotes the true difference between a cold and a flu now that I'm thinking about it?  There is surely a wealth of knowledge and a definitive answer on the internet, were I to choose to look, but what do I use to differentiate between the two?

Both are viral and neither can be solved by anything other than your immune system coming up with antibodies to the particular "formula" each presents.  But to me, a cold is congestion, cough, possibly a sore throat, maybe even a little fever, but it's manageable and it's more of an annoyance as you go about your daily life.  The (a) flu is a more intense version of these symptoms and usually is in the category of a "life inhibitor."  It's too much for your system to take, you can't function, even if you want to or need to, and you end up in bed, resting, feeling terrible and hoping it will be better soon.

I have called what I currently have both a cold and the flu depending on my current state of mind and my body's ability to deal with it at that point.  Right now, it feels like the flu.

The Big Boy Update:  Frustration and devastation.  If he gets angry and can't figure out something he may get upset and make a mess.  I need to go now to clean up the mess he made when he couldn't get the new dump truck to do something.  After I press the Publish button I'll find out what all the commotion was about.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  No!  She will say, "no" to her brother.  He may not listen, but she's starting to express her dislike of his domination.  Go little girl. 

Someone Once Said:  The surprise lies in this: The owner appraises his own property. There is a sting in the tail: Anyone can buy property against the owner’s wishes at the appraisal the owner placed on it. The owner can hang on only by raising his appraisal at once so high that no buyer wants it—and pay three years back taxes at his new appraisal.

Bleh...

I don't know how my husband made it through and still functioned with this cold/flu.  He is my hero.

The Big Boy Update:  He got himself shut into his closet during nap time and couldn't get into his crib so he fell asleep under the desk.  Works for me.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She folds in half to sleep on her legs.  It is so not a position an adult would find comfortable; unless you're a contortionist. 

Someone Once Said:  I feel like crap.  (That would be me.)

The Misappropriation of Medication

For Christmas my husband gave me his cold.  It looked awful when he had it and it feels awful now that I have it.  I'm not sure how he managed to get up and do anything with the children while he was in the worst of it.  There were two days he seemed to try and hide in the hoodie of a sweat shirt for most of the day.

I'm getting all the fun symptoms he had so he's been able to tell me how much longer I'll have with this next phase before I move on to the following fun bodily breakdown before I get better.  I have one advantage over him as he went through the cold and I feel guilty about it.

I have pain medication.  I have pain medication prescribed for a valid reason--the three large holes in my behind.  They hurt, oh yes, they hurt.  But that pain medication, while making my bottom much more manageable, is making me feel like there's a chance I'll feel somewhat normal again at some distant time in the future.  Basically, it's giving me hope.

I don't know how he did it but I am so very thankful that the pain medication, in addition to making the intended locations less painful, are helping in the head throbbing, eyeball aching, nose rawing (rawing?  Is that a word?   I'm sick so I'm going to bend some language rules today and not feel badly about it,) and body aching ills.  

The Big Boy Update:  In her crib?  He is loving the new toddler bed.  He can get in and out of it and yet he does sleep when it's time to go to bed.  His bed is a comfort place for him.  It's going so well, I'm thinking we might convert his sister's bed into a toddler bed sooner than we did his.  But having her bed still a crib is a bit of protection for her from him.  He can push things between the slats, but she's got her own space, or so I thought.  This afternoon when I thought they were both finally going to sleep I hear her upset.  I go up to find him in her crib.  How in the...  He's never done it before, but he managed to climb in via the chair beside her crib.  He wanted the toy she had. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Thank you."  She is saying, "thank you."  I don't think I would have believed it if two separate people, my mother and my husband, both told me independently that when you hand her something she says, "thank you" but she definitely does.   Not that those two very important people in my life would lie about something, don't get me wrong there, but I wouldn't expect a thirteen-month-old to be saying, "thank you" of her own accord.  But she says it when you hand her something.  It's very tiny sounding and rather staccato, and sounds like, "dank ooo."

Someone Once Said:  The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.

The New Bed

My son has decided in just the past few days that being in his crib when he's woken up isn't for him.  He's been able to climb out for a good while now, but through some psychological manipulation and (I think) his desire to not land on his head and hurt himself, he's stayed in his crib until we came to get him out. 

Sometimes this staying in the crib involved being on the rail and riding it not unlike a pony.  This was a good way to interact with his mobile from a different angle, until we remove the mobile from his crib.  We would come up to the room he and his sister sleep in and he'd be up on the railing and we'd tell him, "get back in the crib so you we can get you up for breakfast."

But now, the thrill of getting out surpasses the discomfort of landing on his head or butt or whatever it is he lands on since I've never been there to see it.  As of yesterday he's in a toddler bed.

This posed some challenges.   The first, and not the least, was converting the crib to a toddler bed.  That saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words" is an understatement.  I was ready to throttle the manufacturer of the bed for incomplete instructions, inaccurate documentation of included parts and just plain inconsiderateness of their staff writers for the break-apart/rebuild instructions of the crib to toddler bed.

But it is done.  And he is thrilled.   So is his sister.  She and he can crawl into and out of the bed.  But this poses another problem, what do we do with him when he wakes up?  We now have a baby gate on their room.  We have a door open to their "play room" which has toys he can occupy himself with until it's time to get up.   Hopefully he won't figure out how to climb over the baby gate for a while because I don't want a baby running amok in the house while I'm trying to sleep.

Of course, what I want and what you get with babies rarely is the same thing...

The Big Boy Update:  Diaper in the nick of time in the dark.  From above, it was his first morning with his toddler bed.  He woke up, got up and went to play in the playroom.  He shut the door.  Now he's in the dark.  And apparently then decided it was time to take off his pants and then take off his terribly yucky, messy, ewwie, (insert additional gross adjectives here as you see fit) diaper.  I came upstairs just in time and opened the door.  Whew, he hadn't sat down on the carpet yet.  He was very focused on making the diaper into a nice, tidy ball.  I whisked him up and onto the changing table, saying what a good boy he was for taking care of his dirty diaper like that.   Next time, I am guessing I won't be so lucky.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Febrile.  A morning fever of 101.5 and she's not been as happy as she usually is.  That is until the Tylenol.  She's happy now.  Well, she was.  Now she's asleep.  Hopefully it's a short bout of fever and she'll be running around like her normal self again soon.

Someone Once Said:  You can’t be a little bit pregnant and it’s no kindness to hang a man slowly.

So Much To Say

This is a common conversation heard around my house recently:
    Me, "<something something something>".
    My husband, "What?"
    Me, "Never mind."

My husband has had a bad cold which got into his eustachian tubes and impacted his hearing fairly significantly.  I know I talk a lot.  I know I could talk less.  I suppose I get frustrated when someone is intentionally not listening.  Okay, not suppose, do get frustrated.   But I did get a new perspective on communication while he was sick.

He didn't (couldn't) hear lots of things I said while he had the cold and I realized a lot of what I said didn't matter.  I wasn't upset, I just decided if he didn't understand why I changed the food plan for lunch, he could ask me because I didn't feel like yelling it at him.  (He could hear me, but I had to talk at a volume that sounded like yelling and I felt like I was yelling at him even though I wasn't mad.)

I realized I could say a lot less and it wouldn't matter.  I stopped explaining things.  I suppose I could continue to do so, but what's the point of being married to someone if you don't bother to communicate and talk to each other?  I know I talk a lot.  But I don't think I want to go the opposite route and intentionally not talk. 

The Big Boy Update:  The Potty Advent Calendar.  We've been giving him a "prize" for successful potty trips from time to time.  We've been using his advent calendar for those rewards.  I wonder if he's going to associate the potty, chocolate and Christmas together next year?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Spit up.  Twice.  Something didn't agree with her after lunch.  She wouldn't eat at dinner and the number one thing in her life of food is, "oooce" (or juice) and she wouldn't drink any liquids, including water.  Pasta for dinner?  No go.  On the way home, she threw up on herself in the car seat.  One bath later and she threw up more while I was taking her to bed.  She was fine overnight, ate a full breakfast and school hasn't called to say she's sick so hopefully it was just something she ate.

Someone Once Said:  Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love.

The Thank You Note Variance

Thank you notes are a standard way of expressing your gratitude in our society today.  This has been so for many generations with some more modern variations.   For instance, in my generation, an electronic thank you via email is appropriate in many cases.  Some of my friends don't write paper thank you's and only do electronic.  Some friends prefer not to write thank you's at all.  I do write thank you notes and I've gotten a lot more practice at them over the past three years because getting married, being pregnant and having children tend to up the present-giving situations in your life.

I've noticed something with thank you notes, or just cards in general.  There seem to be three ways people put an emphasis on their cards and each of them seems almost mutually exclusive. 

Consider your friend or relative who loves to send Christmas or holiday cards.  They take pride in their card, and that card is the message.  Their hope is that you read the sentiment on the card and enjoy the humor or touching words and they simply add a small message or maybe they only sign the card.

I have an aunt who loves to send cards for any occasion.  She sends cards for holidays I didn't even know they made cards for.  They are cute or sweet or funny and she does a nice little signature.  Sending the cards is important to her, but the message is delivered by the card.

There is a second type of card sender  that focuses on not the physical card itself, but the message written by the sender.  That's the type of card writer I am.  The card is almost always blank or has only the words, "Thank You" on it.  I commonly have to try and find bigger cards because I can fill up the front and back with words explaining how much the present meant and thankful we are that the giver would take the time to get us such a nice present.

There seems to be a third type of card sender though, and I realized this because of a card I got in the mail just the other day.  This type of card sender seems to want meet the requirements of sending the card, but the content of the card and the sentiment aren't that important.  Just sending something with a, "Thank you" and name signed is what counts.    I just got a thank you card from someone who had stickers made up with the words, "Thank you" and their name on the line below.  No need to even sign the card now, just stick a sticker on it and address it.

Any of these three ways is a way to say thank you, I'm not saying one is better than the other.  I just got to thinking how cards sending means different things to different people.

The Big Boy Update:  Raspberry Tub.  He dislikes getting out of the tub.  If he had his way, I think he'd still be in the tub from mid-week last week.  If you catch him off guard, he won't notice you're draining the water out, although he frequently notices and stops the draining.  Recently when a bath was more than finished with his sister already out, dried off and dressed for bed, I heard strange noises coming from the bathroom.   With no water left, he had come up with a new game.  He was making raspberry sounds on the bottom of the tub and spinning around to see if it sounded different from one area to another.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Choo choo.  In the, "words you didn't realize she knew" realm, she can say, "choo choo."  Her brother says this all the time because he sees trains everywhere and in everything.  We were heading off to play with the train set he got for his birthday and he was saying, "choo choo," and much to my surprise, she said it right after him each time.

Fitness Update:  Surgical follow-up visit and everything is healing well and my surgeon confirmed that I can continue running.  Uncle Jonathan and I have a run scheduled for this afternoon.

Someone Once Said:   When the need arises -- and it does -- you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out -- that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse.

What Gets Done In Bed

No no no.  This is not a naughty post.  Shame on you for thinking that.  This is about the amazing smart phone revolution.  The amazing, completely accepted and expected smart phone revolution.  Like many other people around the globe, I don't know what I would do if this one tremendously useful and flexible tool were taken away from me.

Let me give you an example of a common night and morning with my smart phone...

I get in bed and before I go to sleep I check my email.  I might have checked it a few hours ago, but some people write emails late and some of those emails might affect what I'll be doing first thing in the morning.  If I need to reply, I can reply without getting out of bed by simply using the phone's touch keyboard.

If I need to set an alarm or reminder for the morning I can do it right then.  Speaking of the morning, I'd better check my calendar.  My calendar is synced with both my husband's calendar and the children's school calendar so while I'm checking my own schedule, I can see other calendars that affect me as well.  Good, now I'm prepared for tomorrow.

Oh wait, I wanted to run in the morning.  Let me use my phone to text my neighbor and see if she's up for a morning run.  Now I can settle down to read my e-book (on my phone of course) and fall asleep.

Dingle dingle dingle... What's that sound?  It's my neighbor replying in the middle of the night via text because her husband's just let her know he'll be able to leave the hospital early (he's a doctor) and she'll be able to run at 5:45.  I respond with, "Hooray!  See you soon." and immediately fall back asleep happy.

Alarm goes off and before I get up I'd better check a few things.  Pull up the smart phone and check the weather.  It's important to make sure you know if it's raining buckets (and therefore send a run cancellation text message to your neighbor) and the general temperature so you know how warmly to dress.

Emails?  It's a good time to check because hey, why not.  But bring your iPhone 5 with you because you need it for your run.  There is a great app that tracks my run, integrates with my heart rate monitor and keeps statistics on how many, "burgers burned" and trips to the moon I've made via exercise.  As I prepare to run I turn off the house's security system and my phone goes, "bleepety bleep," letting me know a message has arrived from the security monitoring company and that my house has been disarmed.

Off to my run and I immediately forget what an invaluable tool my phone has been in planning, preparing and tracking my day's activities.  I wonder what technological advancements we'll have in the future and what I'll think about the, "pitifully barbaric phone features" we have in 2012 if I were to read this post in 2022?

The Big Boy Update:  Pockets.  I remember almost three years ago when my husband and I went to deliver cookies to my neighbor (the one I run with.)  She was telling him how she just found out she was pregnant and I wasn't listening because her two-year-old daughter was explaining, very excitedly, how she had pockets.  When I realized we were both pregnant with virtually the same due date I was very excited.   But back to the pockets.  My son, now two himself, has decided pockets are such a great feature in pants.  He wants to put things in his pockets day and night, even if he doesn't have pockets and we have to fudge it by putting an item in his elastic waist band. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Snack time?  This morning I had to drop her off at school very early.  She was happy to be in her classroom but she didn't want Pearl, her favorite teacher, to hold her.  When Pearl put her down she went straight for the tables and chairs—tables and chairs that are the perfect toddler height—and her teacher said, "Do you want a snack already?"  She was happily pulling out the mini-chair and trying very hard to sit down in it so she could have some snack.  It was time for me to leave the classroom, but I had a hard time leaving.  I wanted to watch her working on sitting in the chair.  When I left, she had managed to get the chair out, but she wasn't sure about the sitting down so she decided standing on the chair was a good compromise.

Fitness Update:  Weigh-in day and I've been trending upwards.  Trending upwards and maintaining a target weight several pounds higher than my original goal due to exercise and hopeful additional muscle mass.  This week I was lower than my target weight.  I had a wonderful breakfast to celebrate.  I ate so much I wasn't even hungry at lunch.  

Someone Once Said: The captain of a ship doesn’t have to explain why she gives orders. Or does she? Of course not. Oh, a captain sometimes does explain. But she shouldn’t do it often or the crew will start thinking they are entitled to explanations. In a crunch, this can kill you.

The Finger Crack

My hands are dry from the winter weather and I've been having trouble with the cuticle skin and general nail strength.  I've also had several of my non-pregnant, exceptionally weak nails tear well below the quick line.  On one finger this is no fun, but on three it's downright annoying.  I've got multiple fingers in pain that are going to remain uncomfortable for at least another week or two.

Then to top it off, I must have hit my thumb just right because I cracked a vertical line down the tip of my left thumb.  Cracks in skin are never fun.  Cracks in a location you use constantly, all the time, way more than you realized you ever used your thumb, are even more frustrating.  Box of band aids on stand by.

The other thing I didn't realize was just how often I got my hands wet.  Pre-babies I washed my hands, but I wasn't cleaning up after children all day, wiping noses, cleaning their hands, making meals, refilling juice cups, getting my thumb wet in every possible way I didn't expect basically.

That box of band aids was rapidly being depleted and the crack was re-cracking and bleeding.  In desperation I brought out the crazy glue.  Glue your thumb closed?  Why yes, you can do this and it works well.  It's finally healing and not making me grimace every time I hit it or touch it and better yet, I don't have to wear a band aid.

My father just suggested I get some "New Skin" from the pharmacy as it's a little more pliable than crazy glue.   Now if I can just get my nails to stop tearing.  I'd love to have a day where none of my fingers hurt.

The Big Boy Update:  "Sheh sheh"  He knows the American Sign Language sign for "finished" and he frequently uses it.  He can say, "finished" now too, but it sounds an awful lot like, "sheh sheh."  My husband said he knew that meant something like, "thank you" or, "you're welcome" in another language and I agreed, it sounded somehow Asian and familiar.  We looked it up yesterday and yes, my son is saying "Thank you" in Chinese.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Opposite tastes.  She will eat most things, but some things are a definite no for her.  For instance, she dislikes grapes and won't touch mandarin oranges.  She thinks cereal is great but will spit out oatmeal and shove the spoon away.  In both of these things, her brother is the exact opposite.  He loves grapes and will consume a container of mandarin oranges so fast you want to check his lap to see if he dumped them there.  He also thinks oatmeal is one of the best foods out there.  I mention her dislikes because she is such a flexible eater that it's interesting to note the few things she does dislike.

Fitness Update:  Seven miles today and we have a new morning runner.  She's just doing a bit of running as she has a badly damaged ACL from junior high school, but it's fun to have someone run with us for any portion of the run.

Someone Once Said:  But I never slap anyone; a woman who takes advantage of her size and sex to slap a man is herself no gentleman.

The 16K Butt or This is Not a Bill

The bills are coming in for the abscesses.  They're all from the medical providers and they're all very clearly saying, "This is not a bill" at the top, but they're still making me nervous.  So far, for the two emergency room visits, surgery, overnight stay and other sundry items, I'm getting "not bills" for sixteen thousand dollars.

My butt is pretty expensive.  My butt that's going to have three fairly large scars I'm guessing when the holes have filled in.  Did I mention that my husband is having to pack them and dress them every day?  Did I mention how great he is?  Also, even though I keep calling it "my butt" it's a bit higher up.  I think the term, "my backside" would be more appropriate as I don't sit on it and provided I pay attention, I can avoid excessive pain by just being careful as I move around.  I'm letting you know this in case your mental image was saying, "eww, I didn't want to know that."

So pain still there, yes.  Holes still large, yes.  Bills of a scary and large size coming in, yes.  Deductible not even close to met because I had a healthy year otherwise, yes.  So It's going to most likely be an expensive January.  But I'm on the mend and it could have been worse.  Hope with me that the hospital didn't miss any charges and that my insurance company covers the vast portion of the costs other than the deductible.  I know I'm hoping.  I've been asking Santa for happy bills from my insurance company for days now.

The Big Boy Update:  The re-pantsing.  This morning he was complaining loudly in his crib.  When I got up there I was worried I'd see a brown mess all over the place, but no, as I walked in he was dressed and looked happy.  As I was asking him who's diaper I should change first, his or his sisters, I looked in his crib and noticed an unexpected white ball.  A ball of diaper.  Wait, what's a diaper nicely packaged up doing in his crib?  He has his pants on.   Oh...wow.  He had taken his pants off, taken his diaper off and then put his pants back on.  He was very proud of himself.  If only he'd gotten one leg in each pants leg instead of two in the single leg.  Can I just say how happy mommy was that it was a wet and not dirty diaper?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "Here, this is for you."  She loves to hand you things.  You need only ask her to share whatever gooey, sticky, slobbery thing she's holding on to and she will gladly come over and stick her little happy hand right in your face.  She likes to share.  He brother takes advantage of this trait on a regular, selfish, basis.

Someone Once Said:  Killers don’t look like killers; they look like people.

The Brown and Yellow Car

My son is potty training at school.  He's getting fairly good at it, although there are days he's sent home with multiple pair of underpants and pants to be laundered.   We're working on continuing the training at home and in the past several weeks we've been sending him to school in training pants.

Sending him to school in training pants (these are like padded, cloth underpants) is great because he's already changed for his "training" at school.  They are also nice and send him home at the end of school in training pants.  And while this is nice, it can pose some problems because he comes home at lunch time and sometimes we don't get to a potty for a while due to eating lunch out and/or errands.

Yesterday after school we went to Jason's Deli, one of our family favorites.  Lunch went well with everyone having plenty to eat and ice cream cones all around for desert.  After that we needed to run an errand to buy something in a store in the same shopping center. 

As we pulled in, my husband said he'd run in to get the item and I said I'd change my son because he was going to fall asleep any minute and I'd rather have him in a diaper for his nap than possible wet pants in the crib.

As I climbed into the back of the minivan and pulled him out of the seat, sure enough he'd wet his underpants, pants and even the car seat.   Oh fun.  He'll stand up for a pants change which was nice and getting him into the spare pants and diaper was fairly easy.  "Hmm," I thought, "maybe I should change his sister now so they'll both have clean diapers for their nap."

He was having a great time pushing buttons and investigating the back seat and I was getting her diaper off.  His enjoyment of the car and it's features seemed to be right on top of where I was changing her though.  So I left her pants-less to put protective cloths on his car seat and stick him back in.  He wasn't happy, he wanted to investigate.

Then,  I really wasn't happy as I turned around to see a big, warm, ewwie, brown blob on the back seat and my daughter merrily standing right beside it.   Talk about sweeping her off her feet.  Off her hopefully not messy feet.   Did I mention this was a potty post?  Oops, I forgot.

Thankfully, she hit right in the middle of a section of leather and then had magically completely missed stepping in it or getting it on her in any way.   I was SO lucky. 

Daddy got back just as I finished cleaning up the seat and would have been none the wiser had it not been for the lovely bouquet he smelled when he opened the car door.

The Big Boy Update:  Cone master.  He is getting good at eating an ice cream cone in the proper order.  Initially, he would try to eat the bottom or push his finger through the side of the cone but as he's gotten more cone experience he's learned to eat the ice cream from the top first and then eat the cone from top to bottom.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  No, no.  She has been good at telling us she doesn't want something by firmly pushing it away for some time now.  Yesterday I asked her about some food and she said very clearly, "No.  No."  I wonder if she'll have an aversion to saying, "yes" like her brother does as she gets older?

Fitness Update:  Five miles in the afternoon and we got to run in the park.  We ran almost too long out though as it was so dark when we got back we could hardly see the park exit through the trees.

Someone Once Said:  Language itself shapes a man’s basic ideas.

Is "It's really nice" a synonym for "I don't want this"?

I've heard the phrase, "It's really nice" so many times in relation to an item someone is offering to give me that it got me thinking.  If it's so nice, nice to the extent that it's "really" nice, then why does the person want to give it away?   I think it's fair to say that in most cases the phrase, "it's really nice," means, "I don't want this, but don't you want it because I'd like to find a nice home for this and I'm hoping you will want it so I don't have to throw it away or have it go to waste."

Usually, this item is something the person no longer need for and wants to find it a new home.  Sometimes it's a consumable.  Maybe it was a gift and it's more than the person can eat before it goes bad or maybe it just doesn't match their taste.   But it does feel a bit like a coercion tactic when you're told "Don't you want this?  It's really nice."

Because no one is going to say, "Would you like this completely useless thing?  It's complete crap, but I don't want it and you look like you might want some more junk."  I remember last year or maybe two years ago a strange mailing came to both my parents and my in-laws.  It was some sort of native American sun catcher.  I think it might have been some sort of solicitation for money, I don't know because I didn't get one.  And yet it looked too nice to just throw away.

Guess how many sun catchers we were offered?  If you said two, you would be correct.  It took us a bit to realize we had two of the exact same thing that came from two different people living in two different cities.  Then it came out it was something that came in the mail that no one wanted but looked too nice to throw away.  I'm not sure what we did with them, I suppose my son had a good time playing with them.

I have a feeling I'm equally guilty of the, "It's really nice, don't you want it?" syndrome.  I understand the need to clean up, clean out and not make more waste than necessary.  But I'm starting to be more firm in my "no thank you" replies and I'm going to try and be more aware that while I think I might be offering something that's, "really nice," if I'm honest with myself, the underlying motivation is that I don't want the item and am just looking for a way to get rid of it.

The Big Boy Update:  Excabator!  He knows where all the excavators are on the way to school.  He will tell me one is coming up, even before we get to it.  I didn't realize this until he predicted excavators on the side of the road, correctly, multiple times.   He knows his big machines.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Daddy.  That's right, "daddy".  She's been saying "da da" for a while, but is that "daddy" or is that just the da da da da sound?  This morning she said, "daddy" multiple times.  On the way to school I asked her to say daddy and she immediately repeated me.

Fitness Update:  Cold and rainy and we had to cancel our morning run.  My husband has the flu, but we're going to try and run this afternoon if the children will accommodate us with some naps so daddy can rest. 

Someone Once Said:  It is impossible to free slaves, they have to free themselves.

The One Roll of Wrapping Paper

I like paper (I think that's been established) and I like to do things with paper.  For many years I would spend hours and hours wrapping gifts in ways that made the wrapping itself look more like the present than what was inside.  I would make a shirt box look like a tuxedo.  I could add flair with three different papers and diagonal folds on a package.  I was even adept at wrapping cylinders and making the final product look good, which is a heck of a trick.

At this point, I'm more about getting the wrapping done while the children are still napping because once they're awake, nothing useful other than children things get done.  This year I've been trying to use up some wrapping paper rolls that were mostly finished or that had been around for a long time.  As I wrapped gift after gift last night, I looked over at the stack of presents all in the same paper and I remembered a friend who died while I was in college and her amazing roll of wrapping paper.

She was the wife of the president of my college, but I knew her for so many years that I always thought of her more as a friend.  She had the "gift of gifts."  She had the ability to get people a gift that was just right for them.  They may not have realized it was something they wanted or needed, but it seemed to turn out she had read you just right and knew exactly what you needed.

I remember one time going over to the residence--as the president's house was called--during the holiday season.  She had been busily wrapping gifts and there was a large stack of presents on the table.  They were wrapped in a paper that was gold and to my paper-loving eyes, sumptuous.  It was satiny and silky and looked like spun gold and she had the most enticing pile of presents that looked beautiful to me just because of how they were wrapped.

And that was a bit interesting I remember thinking.  I loved to wrap every present under the tree in distinct and different paper.  The more variety, the better.  But here was a pile of presents all wrapped in the same paper, and they looked even better.  Merrier even.  Exciting, surely.  Why was that?  Was it the paper?  Was it the overall presentation?   I don't know.

I remember looking around the corner that day and seeing her industrial roll of wrapping paper.  It must have been six inches in diameter and was enough for many years of wrapping to come.  The roll was held in a metal frame that also doubled as a slicer for tearing off the right size for any wrapping need.  Oh, how I wanted that roll of paper.

I never mentioned it to her, but I think to this day I remember that magical roll of paper and her beautiful pile of wrapped presents and I hope the presents under my tree will be able to somehow feebly compare.

She is deceased now, but I remember her fondly each year at this time as I wrap my holiday gifts.

The Big Boy Update:  Excabator Dump Truck.  Yesterday he watched an excavator dig up dirt and put it into a dump truck.  He talked about it the entire time and included lots of pointing and gesticulations to make sure I understood just how exciting this was.  I got a video for posterity.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Ta da.  Her teacher said she says, "ta da" but I wasn't sure if she was stretching a babble sound into a hopeful word.  As a mother you hope your child is just that adorable and smart, but as a realist, you have to consider that it might be a coincidence of syllable sounds.  But no, she says, "ta da!" when she does something.  It is adorable.  Okay, it's adorable to me, but isn't that all that matters?

Someone Once Said:  Responsibility cannot be shared.

Scratch And Sniff Astounding

I like collecting things.  I have some collections I've had for over two decades, such as my mint collection and my origami book collection.  I even have some collections I didn't realize I had, such as my scratch and sniff sticker collection.

Through a concatenation of events that started with me giving one of my son's teachers some old scratch and sniff stickers for her birthday, I found out that I had not only a collection, but a valuable one at that.   When I gave her the stickers I remarked that they were probably older than she was as they were from the 1970's and I'd gotten them at a flea market many years ago.  "They're vintage?" she asked and that one comment sparked my interest.

Were they collectable?  Did other people have a collection of scratch and sniff stickers like I had from when I was in elementary and junior high school?  It turns out that yes, other people not only collected scratch and sniff stickers (it was a huge fad back then) but there are people that still are collecting.  It also turns out those stickers I'd been giving away for years were uncommon and much sought after.

I found a book about collecting "sniff stickers" as they're called that cataloged a huge variety of stickers from the 70's and 80's.  The first section in the book was on the stickers I had given my son's teacher.  "Hard to find," "Rare" and "Much sought after" were phrases used about these early stickers that were pioneered by the 3M company.  The price of $6-$9 each was what surprised me the most.  The book giving those prices was a bit outdated too.  Could my stickers possibly be worth that much?

A proof of value experiment on eBay ensued.  I posted one apple, one orange and one cheese sticker.  The orange one which wasn't listed as that valuable went for $.99.  But the apple and cheese stickers went for $13.50 and $12.50 respectively.  Did I mention this was for one sticker?  Just one.  That's right.  That's crazy.

Did I also mention that I have hundreds of each of  these stickers?  I was so thrilled that I mailed two to each winner.  My husband said he'd be willing to sell them for me if we ever need a steady income or if we want to retire to Cozumel. 

The Big Boy Update:  Two years old today.  We celebrated with pinkeye.   Hooray.  School called and asked if we'd come and get him (and his sister too) because there was a case already in his class and he looked like he was scratching his eye.  His sister did not show signs but his doctor said he had one mildly red eye and it wouldn't hurt to treat both eyes and both children.  So it's drops for both for four days.  What a way to celebrate being two.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Soup.  I gave her some of her brother's favorite soup, Campbell's Vegetable Beef, today.  Not only did she like it, she insisted on using the spoon and putting it into her mouth.  She finished her half can and moved on to her brother's half can before she was done eating.

Someone Once Said:  If your man wants something, and you can accommodate him with no grief, give it to him!

A World Without Roads

Have you ever thought something like, "I wonder what the pilgrims would think if they saw the world now?"  Or maybe you think about the Vikings, or the Visigoths, or something more mundane like people from the 1950's.  In whatever past reflective direction you go, it is startling how our planet has changed, how technology has improved our lives and how dramatic our standard of living has increased over a relatively small number of centuries.

Sometimes I think about how the world will change in the future.  What if I could close my eyes and when I opened them, I'd be able to see the exact same location but one hundred years in the future.  Would the difference be significant visually, or would houses pretty much look like houses and roads pretty much look like roads but things would have advanced from a technology front?   I suppose we'll know in a hundred years.

One thing that seems to be so different from two hundred years ago is the huge amount of space we utilize in our road systems.  We move goods and people via the roads, and our roads have gotten bigger and more complex as a result.  There's been talk of flying cars ever since I was a child.  I don't see flying cars as a reality to come in my lifetime, but if or when that happens, the landscape of our inhabited world is going to change drastically.

All those highways can be put to use as parks.  Houses that are nicely in a row now and all facing the road can face any direction they want because you'd just hover in for a landing on the parking area.   My whole mental map of the city in which I live is based entirely on the road systems and how I get from one area to another.  All of that would change.

If I could see into the future, I'd love to see a world where emission-free, not environmentally detrimental vehicles were moving about in the sky.  I'd love to see much less hard scape on our land and a more natural, growing world around us.

The Big Boy Update:  The Bony House.  Today on the way to school he saw a house under construction in the middle of being framed.  He repeated, "The bony house, the bony house" as he pointed to the house across the street.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Sinus infection?  She has some very bad looking congestion.  She can't breathe in the mornings or after a nap unless she's been nasally aspirated.  We're debating on taking her to the doctor.  They will probably prescribe antibiotics.  She might be at the end of this cold and I'd rather keep her off medication unless she needs it.

Fitness Update:  Sixty-five degrees?!  I ran in shorts and a short sleeved shirt today.  My neighbor got hot, took off her shirt and just ran in her running bra.  Hard to believe it's sixty-five degrees on December tenth.

Someone Once Said:  Dear, we do not exhibit our youngest the moment someone sets foot in the foyer and thereby place on him the onus of being insincerely ecstatic.

Getting on my Nerves

I don't remember being in pain much as a child.  Surely, I remember falling out of the apple tree and trying to convince my parents that my arm was broken because it hurt so badly.  But I don't remember much else that was painful.  I ran all over the place outside and in.  I ran into things, I dove into leaf piles filled with sticks, I was constantly working through scabs on my arms and legs from who knows what physical insults I was putting my body through.  But I don't remember pain.

Is there something about the nerves in a child that makes them immature or not fully functional?  Do children get over painful incidents more easily?  Do children feel less pain than adults do?  Take as an example adults in their forties—that would be my age range—and think of how many you know that deal with some sort of chronic pain.  Knees, spines, digestion problems and migraines are common ailments adults have that put them in regular, significant pain.

Think of your parent's generation.  At their age, most of them are in pain in more than one way.  Surely, our bodies begin to fail as we get older, but that doesn't seem to add up to the sheer amount of pain adults are in in comparison to children.

Do children have less nerves?  Are their brains not equipped to cope with the pain impulses as completely or thoroughly as those of an adult?  Or, is it that children are young and inexperienced and haven't experienced enough pain to fear it like adults, who have been beat down and up by painful incidents for so long?

I don't know the answer, but I am very glad to see my children get up and keep moving when they fall down, hit their head, close their hand in a drawer, scrape their knee, etc.  I still have the adrenaline jolt and quick intake of breath when I see it happening; that's my reaction as an adult who has been through and felt too much pain.

The Big Boy Update:  Second birthday party.  He had his birthday party today and I think it was great fun.  I'm not sure he knew it was his birthday.  The older children and adults did though.  It was at an indoor playground with pizza, cake, swings and slides.  He liked the cake though.  He asked for more for dinner tonight.  Thanks to daddy for making his spiffy, custom train cake.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Coffee table climber.  Today she mastered the coffee table.  Climb up, sit down and look pleased with herself, climb off, repeat... for an hour.

Fitness Update: Finally five.  My neighbor is back from vacation and we did a test run today.  I was surprised I wasn't in much pain from the large surgical holes in my behind.  The surgeon said I could run as long as I was comfortable.  I didn't take any pain medication so that I would know how painful it really was.  I didn't want pain medication to dull my senses when I needed those pain messages to tell me if I needed to stop.

Someone Once Said:  If possible, leave room for your enemy to become your friend.

Outsides

My son knows the word outside.  He says it a lot because he loves to go outside to do lots of things like play at his park (swing set,) watch the trucks digging dirt across the street or just play with sticks and rocks.  Outside is one of his favorite places.

But don't we mean "outsides?"  Inside and outside are strange words.  It's not just one side.  When you're inside you've got sides all around you called walls.  And when you go outside, you go out from all the sides you're inside of. 

This is the kind of word my son will use because it makes more sense to him than the actual, possibly illogical word that is the correct word.

The Big Boy Update:  "Daddy jacket.  Daddy outside."  Daddy went out on the deck and it was cold weather.  My son, eager to help, said that as he went and got daddy his jacket so he could stay warm.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Miss messy.  She loves to make a mess.  She is a cute, sweet, dainty and messy child.  I am thinking of getting her dirt colored clothes for school because that's the color she comes home after being in the playground.

Someone Once Said:  A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame…as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings simply nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world…aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure.

The Shampoo Conditioner Disparity

Why are shampoo and conditioner bottles different sizes?  Do people commonly, consistently, regularly pour more shampoo into the palm of their hand than they do conditioner?  Do people think, "I don't need to condition today, maybe next time."  I don't know what the reason might be, but I'm always running out of conditioner before shampoo.  It is annoying.

Back in the days of supermarket or drug store hair products, I would just go and get a replacement when I ran out.  Later on, when I decided my hair was dry and frizzy enough and my frustration level was high enough to merit spending the extra money on better quality products, I would go to the salon.

Buying your hair care products at a salon is just fine, as long as you go back to get your hair cut or colored in time to buy refills.  But it seemed I was always pre-buying or post buying one or the other.  "I'd better get an extra conditioner now because there's no way the one I currently have will last until next time."  Or, "I am so glad to see you all because I've been adding water to the bottom of the shampoo bottle for over a week now and I just don't think there's anything left at this point."

Today, the sizes of shampoo and conditioner bottles are still different, but there is the internet.  And there are even bulk savings if you're willing to buy three or more at one time of some products.  Oh, and free shipping.  That's always nice.  So I get four of one and three of the other and have just stopped asking why the sizes are different.

The Big Boy Update:  School party.  Today we celebrated my son's birthday at school.  Mimi, Gramps, daddy and I came to the brief celebration.  When we arrived he ran straight to Mimi for a big leg hug.  Then he grabbed onto Gramp's legs.  He made it next to daddy and then he sort of drive-by waved at me.  I now know where I am on his family hierarchy.   He had made muffins for the whole class (they added water to the mix, he stirred it and poured it into the mini-muffin pans.)  We sang him happy birthday and had a nice time with his classmates.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Liking Pearl.  She has two teachers, Angie and Pearl.  They are both wonderful and I'm so glad to have them as her teachers.  Today when I walked onto the playground to get her, Angie was picking her up.  She was not happy.  Angie handed her over to Pearl, looked up and say me and said, "She far prefers Pearl over me."  And sure enough, when Pearl took her, she was happy again.

Someone Once Said:  Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.

Pizza Pie Or Why We Lie To Our Children

I hate lying.  I just find it distasteful.  I don't enjoy deceiving other people.  Some people seem to delight in being able to fool someone else by making them believe things that are untrue.  And yet I will not only lie to my child, I will plan a strategy and bring my husband in on the specifics of the lie so he can back me up.  This is not something I thought I'd be doing before I had children but it's now part of my day.

This morning I told my son, "Here's your breakfast, and here's some delicious oatmeal," as I handed him some Rice Crispies in milk that had been warmed slightly.  He immediately began eating the "oatmeal" because he likes oatmeal.  If I had presented it as cereal he might have balked, because he prefers his cereal dry.  We're working into cereal with milk.  We've tried letting him pour the milk on the cereal with some success but in general, it's easier to get a child to eat something he thinks is something he already likes than something he definitely decided last week he didn't like.

I remember tremendous indignation as a child when I found out about one of these parental food lies.  My best friend and I loved pizza.  We came to dinner one night to see something pizza-shaped sitting on our plates, but was not at all like pizza.  Our mothers told us it was "pizza pie" and it was so good and we should eat it.   We were skeptical.  I don't think we ate much because it just wasn't that good, sorry mom, I know you read this blog.

Later, when the dishes were being cleaned up, I heard my mom say to Joan, "That was a great  quiche."  Jenny and I were in hearing distance and we were mad.  Incensed.  We had been tricked.  We did not like quiche.  To this day I haven't really been a quiche fan.  It's not a result of the parental lie.  I love eggs, but I've never found eggs in a pie format that appealing.

What I did learn from that experience is that a parental lie will only work within a certain tolerance.  Don't say mashed potatoes are candy, it's too much of a stretch.  I wasn't sure if my cereal lie would work this morning so I used the mushiest cereal we had (Rice Crispies,) added a small amount of milk and microwaved it to make it as close texturally to oatmeal as I could.

I succeeded this time but as my children get older and more skeptical will I still be able to make a parental lie believable? 

The Big Boy Update:  "What's big and gray and has a trunk?"  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was on the other day and they asked this question.  My son was playing with toys and listening.  There was a small trumpeting sound and then, before the elephant came into view, he said "elephant!"  Was it the description that gave him enough clues to figure out the answer?  Was it the sound?  I didn't know he knew that much about an elephant either way.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Spinner.  She likes to spin in place.  She can turn around and walk well, but in the last two days she's started standing in one place and just turning around and around.  It's cute to watch.  I thought she was lost the first time, but I think she's just likes doing it.

Someone Once Said:  Two witnesses who tell the exact same story are lying.

There's No Place Like Home Computer

There really is no place like your home computer.  Someone else's computer, no matter how slick or fast or well-equipped just isn't the same.  There must be some sort of mental bond we make with our computers.  We know the feel of the keyboard and can type with ease.  We know where all the icons are and our eyes are used to the screen size and resolution.   It's never the same with another computer.

It feels a bit like trespassing when you use someone else's computer to get something done.  You come in quietly, not messing with settings or making changes in any way, because you know this isn't your place and you should be a good visitor and leave things just like you found them.

It's possible to appreciate the features of another computer such as the great resolution, lightness of the laptop, brightness of the screen and speediness of the processor; but it's just drive-by computing and doesn't feel the same as your older, slower, lower-resolution laptop that seems to know when you're at the keyboard because it sends out vibes telling you it's glad you came back to write that next blog post and check your email.

I've had to use other computers recently to make these blog posts, because darn it, I'm going to post every day unless I'm knocked out or incoherent.  Speaking of, I was knocked out most of Monday with surgery and recovery.  My husband brought me his laptop so I could quickly write a blog post that night.  I got it done quickly because post-anesthesia I was all manner of cranky and irritable and that "not-my-PC" feeling was stronger than normal and his very nice, sleek and capable computer wasn't MY computer and I just wanted that blog post done.

I wonder if that's why writers get stuck using an old typewriter, because that's how they started and that's how they feel comfortable writing?   I hope that never happens to me.  I love hardware upgrades.

The Big Boy Update:  I think it's time I mentioned he's not that big anymore.  He is larger than his sister, but he's thin.  He's no longer that little "butterball" or "fatty" as he has even been fondly called by friends and family members.  However, in comparison to his younger sister, he is still big.  If the day comes that she growth spurts past him, I may have to re-title these sections.


The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Happy eater. I may have said this before, but she is a happy eater.  She's completely happy sitting in her chair with food in front of her.  She can sit there for quite a spell, picking up food, putting it in her mouth, sometimes exchanging the food in her mouth for other food, re-feeding herself food that's fallen into the pouch of her bib and drinking from her sippy cup.  It can be hard to know when she's done eating she's so content.  Usually, you can tell because she's happily dropping (or throwing) all the remaining food to the dog.

Someone Once Said:  (On the occasion of my third wedding anniversary I thought this was appropriate.) Surely marriage is an economic contract to provide for children and to take care of mothers while they bear kids and bring them up—but it is much more than that. It is the means this animal, Homo sap., has evolved—quite unconsciously—for performing this indisputable function and be happy while doing so.

The Pitcher and The Moles

I'm home from the hospital with not one, but three abscesses removed.  For a hospital stay, it was pretty nice.  But hospital stays aren't ever that fun and I am very glad to be home.

I drank a lot of ice water while I was lying in bed.  The nice nurses would refill my pitcher  regularly and I was pretty thirsty after the anesthesia.  As I looked at the pitcher I thought back to probably thirty years ago, in the same hospital, looking at a very similar pitcher.

My mother decided to go in and have some moles removed.  I'm not sure why she needed to be in the hospital to have moles removed.  It could have been a time of medical overkill.  Nowadays they'll kick you out of the hospital if they're fairly sure you can limp to the car well enough on your own.  Which for me is just fine.  I prefer my own bed.  It doesn't inflate and deflate on me and there is no pesky IV line to attend to.

I remember asking my mother if everything was going to be all right and she assured me it would be.  I also remember the nice plastic pitcher beside her bed.  It was so nice and pepto-bismally pink.  She came home after the procedure and guess what, she brought the pitcher home with her.  They said it was hers to have.  I couldn't believe it; a hospital stay and a free picture?  How much better can life get?

Interestingly enough, I don't think the designs of those pitchers has changed much.  The one in my room had a nice lid that wouldn't pop off when all the ice went "thwunk" as it flew forward when you were pouring a glass.  Other than that they were pretty similar.  And apparently, they were included as I saw the nurse throw mine away when I was packing up to go.

The Big Boy Update:  Donald Messy.  Interesting assessment by my son as he watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse the other day.  He saw Donald Duck fall into some mud and then told daddy, "Donald messy."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Not so sleepy.  She had a bad night last night and wouldn't go back to sleep early this morning.  School called and said she couldn't stay awake so daddy went to get her.  Just as he was picking her up she was having snack--a snack that refueled her so she was awake until almost the end of the regular school day.  Tonight she's asleep on time.  Hopefully she'll sleep through the night.

Someone Once Said:  "There’s little difference.” “There’s always a difference! This is between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’—which is much sharper than between ‘good’ and ‘better.’”

Overnight Stay

The boils got worse.  Much worse.  Back to the emergency room.  Surgery and an overnight stay.  Feeling much better now.  Short post today as a result.

The Big Boy Update: Helping.  He helped decorate the tree with daddy.  It was that kind ot two-year-old help that is not much help. The lights eventually made it on the tree.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  As I was at the hospital all day, I asked my husband what she did of note.  He said, "she was cute."

Topic Box Cleanout

Sleeping
I’ve heard it gets harder to sleep as you get older. I’ve also heard you become more of a morning person or at least an early riser as you age. The first part is definitely true. I enjoy getting up early to get things done. I like seeing the sunrise. I like the quiet, peacefulness of morning. But I have no problem sleeping. I look so forward to going to bed and going to sleep. Sleep is like a warm friend I get to visit every night. When I hear stories other people tell about difficulties sleeping it sounds very frustrating. I look forward to getting in bed every night. Do people who can’t get to sleep not want to go to bed because once there, getting to sleep can be challenging? I hope I don’t have sleep problems as I get older. I’m going to try and preserve my love of getting in a comfortable bed and falling asleep for as long as I can.

The painting of the pig, and other makeup matters
We have a lot of school events we go to now that we have children who enrolled in a school. The events are fun because the teachers, staff and other parents are good company.   Last night we went to the school’s holiday party and it was, indeed, fun. I ate lots of “other people’s food” which I enjoy very much. All in all, considering I couldn’t sit down and didn’t want people to know I’d been in the emergency room earlier in the day, it was a fun evening. I even put on some makeup. I have the makeup I got when I got married. It doesn’t come out much and I don’t really enjoy putting it on. I always feel like it’s a colossal waste of time, money and effort. Granted, I don’t know that much about makeup. I do think I look a little more dressy with makeup on, but I don’t think it makes enough difference to bother most of the time. And as I’ve only put makeup on two times this year, It seems I can’t be bothered very often.

“It’s going to be allrightness”
It doesn’t matter how minor the surgery is, when you get cut into, it’s going to hurt. In the past year I’ve had three procedures for which I was prescribed pain medication: a cesarean section, a tooth extraction and a boil lancing (ugh, that last one still grosses me out, I don’t even like to type it, sorry.) Each time I've taken the pain medication because it does help and for short-term situations, there’s no reason to be in pain. I was sitting on the couch yesterday, in pain, waiting for the pain medication I had taken to begin to take effect. A few minutes later I was overcome with a sense of “it’s all going to be okay.” I realized then that the medicine was working, I was in less pain and I was relieved mentally. Is it that feeling that makes people want to abuse pain medications?

Where are you, winter?
As each season arrives I find I really like that season. I think it would be terribly boring to live somewhere where the weather and climate was monotonous and consistent all year round. I like change. We've been having some nice cold mornings, but the afternoons warm up to close to sixty degrees and I just lose my “it’s wintertime” vibe. I might want a cup of hot chocolate in the morning, but mid-day I want to put on a t-shirt and walk the kids around the block. That kind of weather wishy-washiness is killing my cozy, sit by the fireplace under a blanket vibe. Come on winter, I’m ready for you.

Recycle Shameful
Why do plastic companies make the little recycle symbol so very hard to find and see? There is usually a large amount of real-estate on the bottom of a package or lid or cup that’s not printed on and yet the recycle triangle symbol is regularly very tiny and sometimes even seems hidden. As a plastic producer, wouldn’t you want to loudly advertise how yes, you’re material #2 and you’re so glad your customers care and want to recycle their products? We can recycle everything but #6. But there is a lot of #6 around so I spend a lot of time looking for recycle symbols. I don’t understand why with environmental awareness and preservation such important issues in our lives, plastic producers don’t make their recycle symbols larger.

The Big Boy Update:  Raspberry Bath. He doesn’t like his baths to end. Sometimes, getting him out of the tub even when the water has all drained out is a challenge. The other night I was drying and dressing his sister while he played in an empty tub. I started hearing a strange sound and had to laugh when I came in to see him making a raspberries with his mouth on the bottom of the tub.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Point. POINT!  If she wants something she will point at it. If you don’t get what she wants, she points more emphatically. Her point is usually accompanied by a grunting, umphing noise that represents whatever noun word she doesn’t know.

Someone Once Said:  Never appeal to a man’s “better nature.” He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.